A bumper Sep-tober update

by | Nov 1, 2019 | News

If you could make any observation about 2019 it’s that time has flown at an exponential rate this year. We have less than 60 days until the end of year and the end of the decade that was the 2010s. For the South Africa Media Innovation Program (SAMIP) the last two months have seen a lot of activity and progress.

Remember September

During the month of September the program assisted our participant the Children’s Radio Foundation (CRF) who were tasked with running this year’s Menell Media Exchange (MMX) that was held in Cape Town.  The Menell Media Exchange is an annual conference committed to developing and supporting an inclusive, collaborative, robust and sustainable media community in South Africa and beyond.

This year’s conference had a youth focus as CRF youth reporters and renowned journalists from across South Africa joined forces to map out News for the Next Generation.

SAMIP helped bring down members of our cohort and partners to participate in the conference. At MMX 2019 representatives from #SMWX, The Daily Vox and Mail & Guardian (M&G) sat on a panel discussing youth and elections coverage.

Hashtag our Stories‘ Naeema Dudan ran a workshop on mobile journalism and SAMIP program officer Siyabonga Africa ran an audience engagement and product development workshop.

Rocking October

During October our participant ViewFinder launched their investigative journalism platform along with a report on police brutality cover ups in farming communities. They ran social media campaign to promote the launch and late in the month they held screenings of A Killing in the Winelands a documentary film in the #KillingTheFiles series.

October also saw the annual African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC) taking place in Johannesburg and was hosted by Wits Journalism. The conference brings together the continental journalism community and SAMIP was roped in to assist with programming and bringing our participants.

A couple of our participants ran workshops and sat on panels during the conference:

  • Igunundu Press chairman Nhlanhla Mtaka was invited to sit on a panel discussing investigative journalism in rural areas. Igunundu’s publication Bayede News publishes a number of stores on corruption, tender irregularities and political clashes in KwaZulu-Natal.
  • ViewFinder founder Daneel Knoetze presented a case study on their flagship investigation into the Independent Police Investigative Directorate’s (IPID) cover up of police brutalities in farming communities.
  • Daily Maverick publisher Styli Charalambous and our program manager Bilal Randeree sat on a panel and ran a workshop on media sustainability that has become a conference highlight.

The program has also begun running a roadshow to meet members of the community paper sector as we continue looking for more organizations and projects to add to our cohort of participants. In October we visited publications in the Western Cape and we plan on doing the same in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.

As the year comes to close we urge to submit your enquires to our website.

Until next time. Cheers